


Waiting an Eternity

by TissyYip



Category: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Immortality, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 12:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6285088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TissyYip/pseuds/TissyYip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Baby's first fic. First fic posted anyways. Constructive criticism is always welcome and this almost ended with everyone dead, so be glad that was changed.</p></blockquote>





	Waiting an Eternity

It was a year after Cloud had killed Sephiroth for the third and final time that Cloud thought that he could finally let go of the past.

His memory was still full of holes with months at a time missing or completely replaced with Zack’s memories but Cloud thought that it wouldn't matter anymore. Everything from his past was gone now. Sephiroth was dead, Shinra a shadow of what it used to be and anyone Cloud had known in Shinra was almost certainly dead.

Cloud knew that everyone had assumed that when everything was calm and all the loose ends tied up he and Tifa would get together. It would make sense after all, Cloud used to have a crush on her and Tifa certainly liked him.

Cloud would have asked her, was going to ask her but every time he really though about doing it, it felt like a shadow was over him.

The first time he was going to ask Tifa it was a month after Sephiroth’s third and hopefully final death. Cloud had the conversation about their relationship all planned out and everything. He was about to get ready to say something to her when in the back of his mind there was a flash of red. He didn't know why but after that Cloud decided that today was a bad day to talk.

The next time the flash had happened he, Tifa and the rest of AVALANCHE were attending the play that was supposed to signal the opening of the new theatre in Edge. Cloud didn't particularly want to go but Tifa was just so excited about seeing a play for the first time that he had agreed. The play was odd and wrong and when Tifa had asked why he looked so perplexed and all he could say was “That's not how the ending is supposed to go…” Cloud has never been to a theatre before in his life but he _knew_ that that ending was _wrong_.

The third time the feeling came was the last time it had felt like it didn't belong. It was not long after the ‘Omega incident’. Cloud was near Midgar as he was heading to visit Aerith's church. When driving through sector 8 Cloud was attacked by a behemoth. It was nothing he couldn't handle but the beast caught him off guard and managed to hit First Tsurugi out of his hands, Cloud had called upon the first materia he thought of. It was a fire3 and the behemoth bad burnt easily in the flames. Cloud spent the rest of the day thinking that it shouldn't be him using fire materia but when he tried to think who should the thought slipped away from him like he was trying to grab hold of air.

Cloud had dreams sometimes, dreams of red hair, poetry and black feathers, dreams coated in fire and filled with flames that would never burn him. He could never recall what they were about exactly when he woke up but they always left him feeling melancholy.

Cloud wondered if you could miss someone you didn't know, someone who didn't exist.

Sometimes when something happens the first thing in Cloud’s mind is a half remembered quote, he doesn't know from what and although he wouldn't admit it the idea that he doesn’t know that scared him. He felt he should remember, no he _knew_ that he should remember. He had no idea why and that make it all so much worse.

One day when Tifa sends him out to buy food; Barret was back and she wants to make a large dinner; Cloud saw a book. The book had LOVELESS written on the cover and Cloud soon realises that it must be what the play he and Tifa saw not that long ago must be based off. Cloud also realised that he _needed_ that book. It wasn't until hours later that he thought to question why.

Later that night Cloud will flick to the back of the book and write the ending that he knows is supposed to be there.

He starts to always carry the book with him. It's the wrong book and he's the wrong person but it still comforts him.

Him and Tifa do eventually date for a little while, he's not sure it's a good idea but she wants to try anyway and “If it doesn't work out we can still be friends”. They date for two months and for that entire time when Cloud turns to look at her his first thought is always that she should be taller or that her hair is too long. At one point it takes Cloud a few seconds to remember that Tifa isn't mako enhanced like he is. Cloud had no idea why he would ever think she was. “It's because he was.” the back of his mind whispers. Somehow that gives cloud more questions than it does answers.

They kiss once and it feels like a betrayal. They kiss once and the kiss feels nothing like it should. They kiss once and all Cloud can think of is that she should taste like apples and fire. They kiss once and Cloud knows instantly that Tifa should be someone else but he's gone now and she's all he has.

They break up not long after that and when Tifa asks what went wrong with their relationship Cloud simply tells her “You're not him” she asks who him is and Cloud admits that he doesn't remember but he knows he should be here.

Sometimes he remembers something for just a second and Cloud gets a wistfully look on his face. He knows that the others worry about him sometimes, they give him concerned looks when they think he can't see. Cloud knows that there is nothing that he can say to calm their worry so he says nothing.

This isn't like before when he remembered Zack's memories these fleeting memories are Cloud’s and Cloud’s alone. They are all he has of his time in Shinra now and he cherishes them despite his hatred of Shinra. He's happy in his memories, truly, purely happy in a way he hasn't felt in a long time.

Sometimes Cloud’s dreams aren't the usual ones, sometimes all he feels when he wakes up is a sense of betrayal and he has no idea who betrayed who. It makes his eyes burn but he doesn't cry. Cloud didn't cry when Aerith died or Nibelheim burned and Cloud refuses to cry for a man who he doesn't even know the name of.

Cloud hits forty yet he still looks barely twenty one and wonders if this is his punishment for the Jenova cells in his body. Everyone else around him ages, even Vincent starts to show signs of the passage of time now that Chaos is gone but Cloud remains the same. Tifa has stopped waiting for him, she stopped waiting as she realised that he was in love with a dead man. She stops waiting and eventually marries Rude, their wedding is sickly sweet. Cloud gives her away at the wedding as her father has been dead for years. He's glad that she found someone else, that she stopped waiting for _the hero_ to come and sweep her off her feet. That she realised that the hero who didn't want to be a hero once he saw the price for such fame was irreversibly broken and every year spent more time trying to remember. He remembers thinking that he had moved on. In a way he has, after all it is not Sephiroth that occupies his thoughts.

Cloud is one hundred, still looks twenty one and spends more time with his memories than ever. Now only Yuffie, Nanaki, Marlene and Denzel remain alive. Sephiroth still hadn't returned after his third death and Cloud still takes his copy of LOVELESS, now lovingly annotated, everywhere he goes. The book is now older and worn and looks much more right to Cloud.

Cloud is five hundred and tired and in love with a person he can barely remember on a good day.

Cloud is five hundred when he grows a wing.

Cloud knows that he should be horrified at the mutation. At the clear sign of Jenova but Cloud can't stop himself from laughing. “Now we can be monsters together!” He shouts to the sky in his joyful delirium and for the first time in centuries Cloud feels alive. Later that night Cloud wonders if the wing means that he will die soon. It doesn't 

 

 

Cloud Strife is one thousand when he meets a red haired man in the now green with life ruins of Midgar.

Cloud Strife is one thousand when he remembers.

Cloud Strife is one thousand when he stops waiting.

Cloud Strife is one thousand when he sees Genesis Rhapsados again after forgetting and fighting and dying and living. Genesis looks different but still exactly like himself in every way and Cloud for the first time since Zack’s death cries.

Cloud Strife is one thousand when he decides that if he is cursed by the calamity’s cells to live forever, then at least he and Genesis will have an eternity and in a way maybe that makes up for all the days that he though that Genesis was nothing more than a figment of his broken mind, that maybe now that they have been reunited they can both start really living again because while they cannot die for the last few centuries Cloud hasn't _really_ been alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Baby's first fic. First fic posted anyways. Constructive criticism is always welcome and this almost ended with everyone dead, so be glad that was changed.


End file.
